The Trillion-Dollar Question

Being worth $465 billion apparently isn't enough. Elon Musk, already the world's richest person by a comfortable margin, could be closing in on trillionaire territory if SpaceX follows through with its reported IPO plans for 2026. And the numbers, wild as they sound, actually check out.

Musk seemingly confirmed the SpaceX IPO speculation with a social media post this week, lending credibility to reports that the space company could raise more than $30 billion at a jaw-dropping $1.5 trillion valuation. That would shatter every IPO record on the books.

Here's where the math gets interesting. Bloomberg currently pegs Musk's 42% stake in privately held SpaceX at roughly $136 billion. If the company goes public at a $1.5 trillion valuation, that stake suddenly becomes worth around $625 billion. That's more than his entire current net worth from all sources combined.

Add in his Tesla Inc. (TSLA) holdings and stakes in other ventures like Neuralink and xAI, and Bloomberg estimates Musk would be sitting on $952 billion. Almost a trillion dollars. Almost.

When, Not If

The prediction markets seem pretty convinced that Musk crossing the trillion-dollar threshold is inevitable. On Kalshi, bettors are putting real money behind their forecasts, and the consensus is striking.

For who becomes the first trillionaire, the odds look like this:

• Elon Musk: 66%
• Mark Zuckerberg: 10%
• Larry Page: 7%
• Larry Ellison: 6%
• Jensen Huang: 6%

As for timing, Kalshi markets show when people think Musk hits that milestone:

• Before 2026: 2%
• Before 2027: 33%
• Before 2028: 60%
• Before 2029: 50%
• Before 2030: 50%

About a third of participants think it happens next year, and more than half believe it's coming before 2028. Given the potential SpaceX IPO and continued growth in Tesla's valuation, those timeframes don't seem outlandish.

Then there's Tesla's recently approved compensation package for Musk, which could theoretically add nearly $1 trillion to his wealth over time if he hits ambitious performance milestones. Between that, retail investor appetite for a SpaceX IPO, and rising valuations for his AI venture xAI, the question really does seem to be when, not if.

The Rollercoaster Ride

Musk first claimed the title of world's richest person in January 2021, and it's been a volatile ride ever since. He's held the top spot multiple times over the past five years, but there have been dramatic dips along the way.

In 2022, Musk earned himself a Guinness World Record nobody wants: the biggest wealth loss ever recorded. He shed an estimated $200 billion as Tesla shares cratered. But by late 2024, as Tesla stock surged, he became the first human to ever reach $400 billion in net worth.

So far in 2025, Tesla shares are up 17.4%, adding another $32.6 billion to Musk's fortune. His wealth has always been tightly linked to Tesla's performance, which makes a potential SpaceX IPO particularly significant. It would provide a clearer, more accurate valuation of his private holdings and could cement his position at the top of the wealth rankings by an unprecedented margin.

A SpaceX public offering would also give everyday investors their first real shot at owning a piece of the company that's revolutionizing space travel. And it might just push one individual past a threshold that, until recently, seemed purely theoretical: a trillion-dollar net worth.